Developers of the downtown South Market District have begun interior demolition of a nine-story office building on Carondelet Street for renovation into a hotel. Meanwhile, plans for a seven-story apartment-retail building at South Rampart and Girod streets, called The Beacon, were submitted to the city for a building permit this month.

An innovative new addition to downtown New Orleans offers convenience to people driving electric vehicles. Rouses in the Central Business District now houses the first public electric vehicle quick charging station.

The first projects that are part of South Market District, a $200 million residential and retail development that broke ground last June, are taking shape. The entire project is slated for completion by the end of 2017.

National furniture company Arhaus will open later this year in the South Market District, the first retail tenant to be announced by developers of the four-block project in the increasingly residential Central Business District.

When the New Orleans Pelicans take to the court Wednesday for this year’s first regular-season game at the New Orleans Arena, it will be more than just the debut of a rebranded team in a renovated facility. It also will be, or so arena and Pelicans officials hope, the start of an era in which both of the city’s professional teams no longer need to rely on annual cash payments from the state to keep them afloat.

Who says summer and early fall are slow in New Orleans? The past month alone has been a banner month for venue openings, especially landmark theatre re-openings. With the re-opening of the Joy and Saenger Theatres, downtown is certainly seeing a theatre renaissance. Now, one of the city’s oldest theatres, the oldest in fact as its new website boasts, the Civic Theatre in the Central Business District (CBD) confirmed its official re-opening and released its Fall 2013 concert schedule this week.

Nearly three years after announcing ambitious plans to revive a section of the Central Business District, The Domain Cos. has started construction on the first building in its proposed $200 million South Market District mixed-use development off the Loyola Avenue streetcar line. The Paramount at South Market, a five-story apartment, restaurant and retail building, is slated to be finished late next year.

NEW ORLEANS, LA–The Domain Companies has secured financing for and commenced construction of The South Market District, a mixed-use transit-oriented development in Downtown New Orleans. The Paramount at South Market is the District’s first building to commence and will feature 209 first-class apartments and 22,000sf of retail space.

The Civic, New Orleans’ oldest theater, is scheduled to reopen by year’s end, at the conclusion of a thoughtful nine-month renovation. Like a buried gem, the ornate Beaux-Arts playhouse has lay hidden in a cluster of Central Business District buildings, unused for more than 20 years.

The menu is taking shape for The Little Gem Saloon, a long-forgotten cradle of Crescent City jazz that’s about to swing to life again on the corner of Poydras and South Rampart streets. Back at the turn of the 20th century, the Little Gem was a haunt for jazzmen like Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton. Despite its prominent place in music history, the building has sat shuttered since the 1970s.

The Central Business District office space market in New Orleans has faced stiff competition over the years from suburban areas, which tend to offer more parking space and better commute times for employees as well as lower lease rates.

The Industrial Development Board today gave preliminary blessing to a payment in lieu of taxes financing package for the first half of South Market District, a development on Girod Street near the future Loyola Avenue streetcar expansion.

The lush branches of the majestic oak trees lining New Orleans’ historic St. Charles Avenue have never looked more glorious than they do now. Not even before Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, which left behind barren, crippled centuries old bark nearly seven years ago, have the oaks looked so strong, green, and healthy.

With a few recent retail wins, economic development officials and real estate professionals say that the prospect for getting more national stores into New Orleans is looking up. In May, after months of speculation that the shopping club Costco Wholesale Corp. would come to New Orleans, the city officially announced the retailer's plans to open at the former Carrollton Shopping Center in 2013. On Wednesday, the New Orleans Business Alliance and the Downtown Development District announced that Major League Baseball hat retailer New Era Cap Co. Inc. will open a flagship store on Canal Street before the 2013 Super Bowl, adding New Orleans to an impressive list of cities around the globe.

If you notice an abnormal amount of activity around the Hyatt New Orleans this weekend, it will be due to these two reasons: 1) There are roughly 2 jillion sports fans in town to watch the Saints and/or BCS Championship, and 2) Borgne is coming to life inside the hotel.

The odd sight of New Orleanians makin' groceries in the 700 block of Baronne Street on Tuesday morning offered the latest evidence that the city's once-moribund downtown is continuing to morph from a land of surface parking lots and blighted buildings into a living, breathing neighborhood. The debut of a 40,000-square foot Rouses Market -- the first full-service grocery to open its doors in the Central Business District in 45 years -- fills a void for a sector that has seen significant residential growth in the past decade.

When John Besh opens a new restaurant, it’s generally preceded by some globetrotting. Now along comes Borgne, a seafood-focused restaurant slated to open early next year in the soon-to-(finally)-reopen Hyatt Regency New Orleans.

For many years, this part of the Central Business District was underdeveloped, home to blighted properties but now that's all changing.
"We definitely felt like this area and this part of the city would come back stronger than ever, and we wanted to be a part of it,” said Jack Warner of Walk-On’s Bistreaux & Bar. The soon-to-be Walk-Ons Bistreaux & Bar and Happy's Irish Bar are the latest development projects to pop up along Poydras.

New Orleans--never a candidate for an underground, subway system--has had on-and-off success with public transit. But as roads became clogged and full of fumes in the post-Katrina era, the city and entrepreneurs have explored ways to expand streetcar lines, make buses greener and restore ferry service on Lake Pontchartrain.

The Joy Theatre, one of four historic theaters in downtown New Orleans, will reopen as a live music and entertainment venue early next year after a $5 million renovation by NOLA Theatre District LLC, the development company announced Friday.

Seven years after streetcars returned to Canal Street following a four-decade absence, New Orleans officials staged a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday for a 1.5-mile line along Loyola Avenue -- the first of what they hope will be multiple new rail projects.

The plan to expand streetcar service in New Orleans is poised to move forward next week when transit officials are expected to recommend a construction firm to build a new line along Loyola Avenue from the Union Passenger Terminal to Canal Street.

The Hyatt Regency New Orleans, whose blown-out windows became some of the first images of Hurricane Katrina damage broadcast to television audiences around the country in 2005, will reopen to guests Oct. 19, the hotel's general manager confirmed Tuesday.

Urban Land Institute - Independent grocers and large national chains alike are reshaping the urban grocery experience. Read how they are changing their format to accommodate tight urban parcels and draw customers in 2011.

This past January, the Federal Transit Administration signed an agreement with the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority for $45 million in federal economic stimulus funds to build a new, 1.5-mile streetcar line. It would link Canal Street with the Union Passenger Terminal, a 1954 structure that’s now home to the Amtrak and Greyhound stations.

Downtown New Orleans will have its first major new supermarket by the fall according to plans Rouses Markets announced today before the groundbreaking of its renovation of the former Sewell Cadillac building at Baronne and Girod streets.

Spurred by the future Loyola Avenue streetcar line, a local development firm plans to transform a sea of downtown parking lots into 450 apartments and 125,000 square feet of shops and restaurants that it calls the South Market District.